Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that Mr. Costello acknowledged the problems that existed previously, which were frightening for the people who were not accepted and sent back to their home countries. I am happy to analyse Mr. Costello's answers as progress is made going forward.

The issue of delays in processing applications was raise by other members. I accept that there are many reasons for the delays in different categories. Citizenship applications can take six months to one year to process. Will the witnesses talk us through the processing of an application for citizenship from a person who has lived in this country for years and is married to an Irish person? Why do such applications take so long? What causes such an application to take six to 12 months to process? I will give an example of a specific case. This person has lived in Ireland for 15 years and was informed in May 2016 that he was being granted citizenship and was invited to attend the ceremony.

A couple of days before the ceremony, he received a letter which stated that it had been withdrawn because people must be of good character and that inquiries were being made. So, obviously, he was a bit shocked by that. Some 18 months later, there is still nothing more on that. This person has three children and has not seen his parents since 2003. None of his children have met their grandparents. Until he gets a decision, he has no travel document. Why is this good character aspect not sorted out before somebody is invited to a citizenship ceremony? When these cases are messed up - I assume that is what happened here - is there any accountability in respect of staff in that situation? Mr. Kirrane will probably state that new information came to light because I have submitted some parliamentary questions on this matter. I could accept that to a point. How in God's name does it take 18 months to review the new information? Is the applicant entitled to that information because, if so, he has not received it? He does not know what it is. There is no accountability, which seems hugely problematic, so I would like some information regarding that type of scenario.

A case that really annoyed me involved what I would describe as the efforts of the Department to prevent a young Syrian woman from being reunited with her sick mother and siblings. The behaviour of the staff handling that application over 14 months resulted in the family having to remain in limbo in Greece for a period way beyond what was necessary. The types of issues the person was refused on included the fact that the authorities in Greece, for whom English is not their first language, had put on the form that the woman was a recognised refugee. She was legally resident in Ireland but on a different basis. It was just a language thing that could have been corrected easily. The application was delayed for months because of that. In these scenarios, is there a culture of resistance to facilitating refugees? How are staff trained to deal with cases of that nature? The case in question concerned somebody being obtuse and ludicrous in the sense that the woman was legally resident here and it was a mistake that could have been easily corrected by a letter. Was the staff member corrected? What sort of training are staff being given?

I am curious about some of the language in Mr. Kirrane's opening statement. He indicated that INIS works with people to produce decisions for those co-operating with the system. "Co-operating" is an unusual word. Sometimes people cannot furnish documents through no fault of their own. What does co-operating mean in that sense? To me, a term like "non-complex cases" is better phraseology. When used in a particular way, the term "co-operating" has a certain connotation. When Mr. Kirrane deals with that, could he also tell me how many of the 800 staff are located in offices outside Ireland or is that a different staff complement?

In respect of the eight-week short stay tourist, the website says someone has to wait eight weeks to get their documents, which, presumably, is somebody's passport. Eight weeks is an incredibly long period for somebody to be without a passport. I visited Africa this year. It took seven days to turn around this stuff. It takes eight weeks to do so here. That seems crazy, particularly in the context of a tourist or holiday visa. Could Mr. Kirrane deal with those questions together?